Simple Snow Science For Kids

While we were waiting for our Sunday dinner to finish cooking, after church, we killed some time, with a simple experiment.

First, I asked the children what snow is. They answered - frozen water.

So, we weighed a measuring cup full of water, and recorded the weight in ounces. It was about 5 ounces of water, including the weight of the cup.


Then, we dumped the water out, and filled our cup with snow.


The cup, filled with snow, weighed less than an ounce.


If snow is just frozen water, then why does it weigh less than same amount water? We had to wait a few minutes for the snow to melt, to get our answer.

The volume of the snow, was not the same as the volume of water, it contained. Our snow, this week, has been a dry snow, with very little water in it. In fact, 1 cup of our snow contained only 1 and 3/4 tablespoons of water.

So even though it looked like a lot of snow, it was very light, in comparison to the same volume (1 cup) of water.

For more fun with science, be sure to check out this week's Science Sunday link-up, at Adventures in Mommydom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.